Mustafa III

Sultan Mustafa III was born in Istanbul on 28 January 1717. His father was Sultan Ahmed III, his mother Mihrişah Sultan. Mustafa III was of middle height with large eyes, a flat nose and a black beard, and an imposing, powerful body. He was very well educated. He occupied himself with astrology and studied Islamic and Ottoman history.

Mustafa III was an exceedingly devout, thrifty, kindly, industrious and generous man. In the great earthquake that lasted two minutes and destroyed well over half of Istanbul, he helped from his own purse the people who had lost their homes and their families. He judged with justice and never turned a blind eye to wrongdoing. He detested lies, hypocrisy and bribery. He never gave way to pride, never gave himself airs, and never promised what he could not do.

Mustafa III held that renewal was necessary and wished to carry out reforms. Having heard of the reforming measures of King Frederick II of Prussia, he sent Ahmed Resmî Efendi to him. Through Ahmed Resmî Efendi, Frederick II sent Mustafa III what he called the three golden keys of his success:

• Read history abundantly; profit from past experience.
• Strive to possess a strong army, and keep your soldiers in constant training in time of peace.
• Let your treasury always be full of money; give importance to the economy.

Having listened to this advice, Mustafa III smiled bitterly, then murmured, "We too intend to do these things — but what is the way?" He believed the greatest disaster would come to his country from Russia. Working night and day for its defence, he made every kind of preparation and filled the treasury with gold for use in war.

He even thought of having the Suez Canal cut. But the lack of capable statesmen to put in office grieved him. During the Russian war he fell ill from distress and died of heart failure on 21 January 1774.

Mustafa III acted on the belief that the army needed renewal. He introduced rules of training for the soldiers. Ignoring objections, he had bayonets fitted to muskets. He founded a new cannon foundry and had powerful guns cast. He opened schools of naval affairs, fortification and artillery, and made training compulsory even for elderly officers. In the reform of the army he made great use of a Frenchman of Hungarian origin named Baron de Tott, who reorganised and modernised the Ottoman artillery corps and gave the troops European-style training.

Mustafa III was a poet. The poems he wrote under the pen name Cihangir are well known; he signed them "el-fakir Mustafa Han-ı Sâlis". In one of them he says:

"Yıkılupdur bu cihan sanmaki bizde düzele
Devlet-i çerh-i denî verdi kamu müptezele
Şimdi ebvâb-ı saadetle gezen hep hezele
İşimiz kaldı heman merhamet-i Lem Yezel'e."

• Sons: Selim III, Mehmed
• Daughters: Şah Sultan, Fatma Sultan, Bekhan Sultan, Hibetullah Sultan

Source: Osmanlı Tarihi Interaktif CD-ROM (Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları XXXI. Dizi-Sa.2)